“Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright” by Margaret Ruttan

I passed by the Strip Club on the corner many times, and although women taking off their clothes and dancing naked for a living had always intrigued me, I never felt compelled enough to go inside. That is, until I heard about the tiger.

The long white semi-trailer was parked on the side street next to the club for several weeks. The newspaper said the show was held over for just one more week and featured the lovely Jane Jones and her lovable co-star, Qadesh, a 465-pound Siberian tiger. The act also featured a large python, a boa constrictor and exotic birds.

The python, boa constrictor and birds didn’t particularly interest me, but the tiger. This I had to see.

Maybe it was the writer in me looking for new material for my next novel or short story, but I was determined I wasn’t going to miss my chance to see it before they left town.

My mom, who was in her eighties, was visiting from Toronto for the weekend. Of course, she wasn’t my first choice. I asked a couple of my friends to accompany me, but they weren’t interested, and the more I tried to convince them, the more I feared I sounded like a bit of a weirdo.

So, I thought, maybe I could convince my mom to come with me.

“Aren’t you at all curious?” I asked her.

“Not really.”

“Don’t you want to see the tiger?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, c’mon, Mom. I can’t go by myself.”

“Can’t you get one of your friends to go with you?”

“I would, but they’re busy this weekend.” Which wasn’t quite true.

“Please mom, I’d go alone, but I’d feel better if someone came with me and I don’t have anybody else.” 

Even my husband wasn’t interested in going, which frankly surprised me.

 “I’m too old for this,” my mom protested.

“No, you’re not. I’m sure people of all ages will be there.”

I was right. There was at least one other elderly person, a man sitting to the right of the stage who appeared to be there alone. He gave my mom a welcoming smile when we looked his way. She snubbed him, turning her head in the opposite direction.

There was an admission fee of $5.00.

The man at the door asked us to hold out the back of our hand so he could stamp it, just in case we left and tried to come back in on another night without paying. I watched as the black ink from the ink pad smudged over my mom’s thin, wrinkled skin.  What was I thinking, bringing my mom to a place like this?

The room was dark and I wondered if that was so people wouldn’t recognize one another or if they couldn’t afford good lighting. I read later it was deliberate to create a sense of privacy for the patrons and to lower inhibitions. For whom, I wondered, the performers or the people watching?

We found some seats not too far from the front of the stage. When I leaned my arm on the table, my skin felt sticky when I lifted it off again, perhaps another reason for the dim lighting – to hide the lack of attention to cleanliness.

I looked around me to see if I recognized anybody. I thought I saw a woman I knew and her boyfriend, but it was hard to tell, two familiar silhouettes.

We ordered a drink and waited for the show to begin.

A petite blonde woman who looked somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties walked by our table towards the stage. She was dressed in a buckskin thong and tight top. She stood about 5 feet tall and didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on her small, toned body.

The noise in the room went quiet as she walked on stage, removed her clothes and began painting herself in multi-colours. She then turned on an overhead shower washing all the paint off as she ran her hands over every part of her body.

Once she was dried off sufficiently, she reached into a bag and pulled out a flute. I couldn’t imagine what she had in mind for that, until she raised it to her mouth and began to play.

I turned to mom and whispered, “She’s clearly multi-talented.”

The old man at the side of the stage was jumping up and down in excitement, clapping his hands.

“Look at him,” my mom said. “He’s making a spectacle of himself.”

We watched as the dancer twisted her naked, compact body around a rope hanging from the ceiling, climbing high in the air and slid back down again.

Then she walked to the back of the room and in less than a minute returned, dragging a heavy braided rope along the thin, stained carpeted floor.

At the end of that rope was a nine-foot-long female Siberian Tiger named Qadesh, pronounced Kadesh. I’d done my research and the name originated from an ancient Semitic root meaning holy or sacred.

The room fell silent as all eyes were now on the tiger.

As the beast sauntered right past our table, we heard the sound of its heavy breathing.  It was so close mom could have reached out and patted it.

The lovely Jane Jones, as it said in the newspaper, guided her oversized pet to an area on the stage and instructed it to lie down. Then she lay naked against the tiger, cuddling into it like a giant soft plush toy.           

Across the table, I looked at my mom, her mouth open and her eyes wide. 

We stared at that majestic beast, huge and golden and its naked mistress, the tiger’s solemn eyes staring back at us.

In that moment that tiger truly was holy.

Margaret Ruttan is an award-winning contemporary visual artist, performing artist and published author based in Belleville, Ontario. 

During the past several years, she turned her hand to writing one-act plays, several of which were performed in local community theatres and one even went international being performed in the United Kingdom earlier this summer. Presently, she is working on a novel with the feedback and support of online classes offered by Brian Henry.

See some of Margaret's artwork here. 

For more short stories, poetry, and essays by you fellow writers see here (and scroll down).

See Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, afternoon workshops, and wonderful writing retreats here.